


Running away from your problems gets a lot harder on a broken leg

by Dooiney_Oie



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Gen, Gonna get jossed immediately once ep13 comes out but I had fun, Mostly just Buddy & Peter bonding I'll be entirely honest, Peter Nureyev and the no good very bad awful 24 hours, Post-episode: S3e10 Juno Steel and the Shadows on the Ship, Some violence but not overly graphic, sorry peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:21:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23880721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dooiney_Oie/pseuds/Dooiney_Oie
Summary: "...Captain A?""Yes, darling?""Well, it's just - and I hope he'll excuse me for sayin' so 'cause I don't mean to be rude, but - Mistah Thief over here ain't lookin' so good."-A speculative fic wondering where things could go/have gone after the end of Shadows on the Ship pt. 2In which I hurt Nureyev quite a lot (Sorry, bud)
Relationships: Background Buddy Aurinko/Vespa Ilkay, Buddy Aurinko & Peter Nureyev, Buddy Aurinko & Peter Nureyev & Rita, Peter Nureyev & Rita, background Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 24
Kudos: 185





	Running away from your problems gets a lot harder on a broken leg

**Author's Note:**

> Wild speculation is my way of coping until we get a resolution to that cliffhanger lol. I don't think this is anywhere near what's actually gonna happen, it's just a fun little what-if scenario
> 
> !!Some more detailed warnings!!
> 
> \- Non-detailed descriptions of injuries/sickness  
> \- Violence, very similar to if not outright police brutality 
> 
> That should be it, but please let me know if I've missed anything! Enjoy :)

"...Captain A?"

Buddy Aurinko turns from her vigil staring at the door of the small, eerily nondescript room the three of them had woken up in. It has, she's catalogued, absolutely no weak spots to exploit. No windows, no cameras (no visible ones, at least), no guards to charm or furniture to dismantle. They have no weapons, no comms, nothing more than the clothes (pyjamas, in fact) on their backs. Nothing to do but wait, conserve their strength, and watch the door. For hours, now. Perhaps even a full day.

"Yes, darling?" she answers, and if her tone is edging out of comforting and into clipped, well, circumstances should excuse a little of that. Rita certainly seems to, a brave face holding steady in contrast to the rest of her, which has grown increasingly fidgety over the last few hours.

"Well, it's just - and I hope he'll excuse me for sayin' so 'cause I don't mean to be rude, but - Mistah Thief over here ain't lookin' so good."

Buddy shifts her attention downwards to where Ransom is laid out on the floor, what was formerly Rita's sweater bundled up underneath his head as a pillow. He hasn't held on to more than a few minutes' fuzzy consciousness since they were trapped in here, but Buddy had put that down to an unfortunate mix of two different sedatives: one administered by Vespa, and one by whatever it was that had tricked them into letting their guards down - because they had been tricked by something cutting-edge and dangerous, that much she's sure of. It had taken less than a minute's discussion with Rita and one look at Ransom's still very much broken leg to confirm that. 

Now, though, his breathing is too fast and too shallow, and his skin is flushed and bright over his cheeks and forehead. He's already starting to sweat off some of the layers upon layers of makeup he wears - something Buddy has been meaning to speak to him about, because his insistence on keeping all that product on his face even while laid out in the infirmary speaks to a deep kind of insecurity that they should probably discuss - and his expression is strained. Rita, kneeling next to him, looks deeply concerned, even when he clears his throat and shows himself to be awake after all.

"While I'm sure I've looked better, my dear, I can assure you there's no - no need for concern. I'll be just fine."

"But - Mistah Ransom, you're runnin' a fever! And your face is all red, and you're shakin' and I think that leg o' yours might actually be--"

"Just fine, Rita," Ransom interrupts, breathy but firm as he hauls himself towards a sitting position. "Whatever my condition, I promise I won't be a burden to you both." He shuffles backwards until his back meets the wall, wincing as he drags his leg along the ground to meet him. "Although, that might be the best that I can manage."

Buddy narrows her eyes at him. He's harder to read than Juno, who wears his emotions so plainly they'd be harder to see in neon, or Rita, who has little filter between her mind and her mouth, or even Jet or Vespa, at times. He's the same way she knows herself to be - playing everything close to the chest, averse to showing weakness, predisposed to smooth-talk and manipulation and always calculating options, options, options. The difference, she thinks, is that he hasn't yet figured out when the walls need to come down for a while, or that some problems can't be outrun no matter how slippery you are.

"Pete," she says, and watches his face do that barely-there flicker of hurt-regret-anger-uncertainty-softness that it always does when she calls him that. She's taken that to mean that perhaps Peter Ransom isn't so fake a name as he'd like them all to believe, but she hasn't brought that up with him just yet. Vespa would disagree with her approach, but Buddy prefers to only push her family into uncomfortable territory when absolutely necessary. If Ransom eventually decides to tell them all his real name, he can get to that in his own time, and if not, he probably has his reasons.

"While I appreciate your optimism, darling," she continues, "I rather think realism would serve us better in the current moment. Your leg appears to be infected, and I doubt you're going to be able to walk in that state, let alone run." She watches as he opens his mouth to argue, but cuts him off before he can really start. "I'm not pointing this out to hurt your feelings, dear, only be clear about our situation. It won't pay to plan our way forward around options that don't exist. Unless you're telling me you're such a magician that you can run on a compound fracture?"

Ransom looks inclined to argue, still, but doesn't quite get that far. Instead, his eyes fall to the floor. "No, captain."

Buddy gets to her feet from where she had been curled around her knees, back against the wall. Her joints protest the movement, especially after so long folded up tense on a cold metal floor, but nonetheless she makes her way over to crouch next to him and place her hand on his uninjured knee. She waits until his dark, surprisingly vulnerable eyes have made their way back to her face before telling him softly, but firmly, "You won't be left behind, Pete. That isn't how family works."

"Yeah!" Rita chirps in. "And Mistah Steel would be _real_ mad at us if we let anything happen to you, and he's been in such a good mood recently I'd hate to make him yell."

"An equally good point," Buddy smiles as she draws back again, settling against the same wall as the others this time. "So, Pete. How are you feeling? And with a touch more honesty this time, please."

Ransom's eyes haven't left her since she touched him, watching her as if she'd said something unheard of. And maybe she had. Buddy had been raised to believe that family, blood or not, is the best safety net a person can have, and the most important to maintain. It's a given to her that no matter the risk, the safety of her family is what comes first. If someone is hurt, the rest of the group picks up their weight, knowing that if and when the time comes every other person would do the same in return. It's a fact and foundation of her life - but looking at Ransom's face now, the way he's staring at her with something not dissimilar to awe, it occurs to her that just maybe, nobody has ever offered him that most basic reassurance before.

After a moment, the look fades to uncertainty, and then wariness, and then the wall goes back up over his expression - but not quite all the way. Buddy counts the sliver of quiet discomfort still remaining on his face as a teambuilding success.

"Like I'm sitting in an ice bath instead of whatever uninspired cell this is," he sighs, swiping at his forehead just above one eyebrow and grimacing at the shiny mess of sweat and makeup that comes away on his fingers. "I don't suppose whoever our captors are deigned to give us any water?"

"They _didn't_!" Rita gasps as Ransom produces a handkerchief (one that Buddy has suspicions might be one of hers that disappeared from the common area a few days ago - another unfortunate habit that they really need to discuss) from some unknown location in his outfit and begins to carefully clean the makeup from his face. "Which, and I ain't no lawyer, but I think a thing like that's grounds to sue! For neglect! And emotional distress. Just as soon as we find out who we gotta sue, o'course."

"That would be the question, wouldn't it?" Buddy observes, drumming her nails against her leg. "Who would go to the trouble of kidnapping us all alive, through acts of dramatic trickery, one by one, in the dead of night and the middle of space?"

"Dark Matters," Ransom sighs, at about the same time Rita gasps " _ALIENS_."

The two of them frown at each other. Then Rita shrugs.

"Well, if you wanna be _borin'_ about it, sure."

Ransom stares at her for a moment longer before seeming to decide it isn't worth it and turning back to Buddy instead. "And where are they keeping the others, if not with us?"

"That's assuming that the three of us aren't the only ones they managed to capture," Buddy points out.

There's a tense silence. Ransom has finished cleaning his face as best he can, exposing the dark circles under his eyes and the tense lines around his mouth. And yet somehow, he looks younger than he did before, his brow openly creased with worry.

"You don't think they could be...?"

"Dead?" Buddy finishes for him. "No. I refuse to. The last time I presumed Vespa dead we lost fifteen years, I won't do it again."

She _can't_ do it again, truthfully. The thought of losing Vespa again after only just getting her back threatens to open up a black hole underneath her feet and leave her unable to do anything else but be sucked in, so for now it's banished from her mind. The priority for the current moment is keeping herself, Rita, and Ransom well enough to get out of here, and from there they can worry about the others.

"The last time I thought Mistah Steel might be dead, he came back missin' an eye," Rita muses. "But then I found out he was just with you, Captain A! Which is kinda similar to that _other_ time I thought he was dead, 'cept he was just out savin' Mars with Mistah Thief. And he came back missin' an eye that time too!" She clasps her hands together in her lap with a decisive nod and a determined expression. "So it's probably better if I don't think he's dead, 'cause the boss ain't got many eyes left any more and I don't think he'd be happy if he lost another one."

"You... knew about that?" Ransom asks, eyeing Rita with much more caution than before even as she tilts her nose imperiously up into the air.

"I know about a _lotta_ things, Mistah _Ransom_ , but you seem to like your privacy so I ain't gonna blab about 'em."

"Well, that's... appreciated."

The door slides open quickly and without warning, and all three of them slip into varying degrees of quiet high-alert as a uniformed guard strides into the room. Buddy catches a glimpse of an equally nondescript corridor outside of the door as they enter, but nothing more than that. These people are frustratingly slick about making sure they're left completely in the dark.

For a moment, the guard simply stands there, their eyes flicking from Buddy, to Rita, to Ransom, where their gaze settles with a solid, deliberate weight. Then, they speak - and not in Solar, either. Buddy's Brahman is rusty, but she can make out more than enough.

"Peter Nureyev," they say. "You are under arrest. The charges against you are, among others: impersonating a government official, resisting arrest across several jurisdictions, travelling across interplanetary borders without a visa, multiple counts of first-degree murder, and acts of terrorism against the state of New Kinshasa. You will be extradited immediately to await trial on Brahma."

It's all Buddy can do to keep a neutral expression on her face, her brows fighting to lift further with every word. Peter _Nureyev_. That little Brahman boy, who'd flashed so bright and then disappeared into nothing, almost two decades ago now. Oh, but that does make sense, doesn't it?

She remembers that incident. She remembers the cascading ripples of a planet suddenly freed from one of its chains and spilling news out into the galaxy, the outrage in the remaining authoritarian planets still not yet overtaken by the war - and some of those that had been as well, the fearful whispers that maybe they would be next. Most of all, she remembers a police bulletin, bearing instructions to bring their target down dead or alive, and thinking that the dark-eyed, bloodstained, worryingly skinny boy their blurry picture showed looked awfully young to be an intergalactic fugitive.

At her side, the man who was once a boy named Peter Nureyev freezes - and then thaws with a smile. He smiles mildly, and amicably, but the expression is tight at the corners as the guard continues to stare at him.

"Oh, were you talking to _me_?" he replies, most distinctly not in Brahman. "Well, that all _sounded_ very friendly, but I'm afraid my only language is Solar. Would you mind rephrasing?"

The guard's lip curls. "Pleading ignorance won't help you. We have a match for your entire genetic signature, and facial recognition, and with that injury, there'll be no more daring escapes. You might as well just give it up."

Ransom's smile holds for another couple of seconds, and then falls away, into something much darker. Buddy has seen a lot of negative emotion flickering across his face at one point or another - less so, recently, ever since he and Juno appeared to have kissed and made up - but never quite like this. Never this level of cold and quiet _hatred_.

"...A trial, is it?" he mutters - in Brahman this time, and unmistakably fluent. "Seems rather out of character for you people. You wouldn't rather set me loose in the streets so you can strike me down without warning, just like the old days?"

"The trial is mostly a formality," the guard says indifferently. "Its main purpose is to raise public awareness of your capture before your execution."

Ransom - Peter, in fact, as he had told them all along - lets out a bitter laugh. "That sounds more like it," he mutters at the far wall, eyes lidded. Then he closes them and gestures vaguely towards her and Rita. "In that case, you have no need to hold these two, do you? I can assure you they're not involved in the slightest. I work alone, and I always have. You might as well let them go."

"Dark Matters has business with them. You, however, they've agreed to release to us." 

Buddy catalogues every scrap of information in that sentence. Every slipped word is another tool in her belt; this guard isn't as committed to airtightness as the rest of their captors have been, and as they lean forward with a vindictive smile, the reason for that becomes much more apparent. "Madame Rossignol sent me personally. She wants you to know she has a lovely grave picked out for you already, right next to your _father_. What did he do to deserve to die, I wonder?"

Peter's fists clench tightly in his lap, but otherwise his face barely twitches. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Of course not," the guard scoffs. They unclip a baton from their hip, point it at Peter's chest, and flick it upwards. "Get up."

"I'd really rather not," Peter replies evenly.

"You don't have a _choice_. Up."

They stare each other down for a long few seconds, before Peter finally sighs through his nose and shifts slightly. Carefully, he moves to get his good leg underneath himself, and slowly but surely slides himself upwards, wincing with every misapplication of pressure to his broken leg but still holding his head high on his shoulders even as his hands shake against the wall.

"Now walk."

Peter scoffs. "And how would you like me to do that? If you've been thorough enough for a DNA test and facial recognition, I doubt a broken leg would have escaped your notice."

"No, it didn't," the guard says. They gesture towards the door. " _Walk_."

"I _can't_ ," Peter insists, but the guard only waves their baton at him again.

"I'll make this even clearer, then: either you walk out of here by yourself, or I knock you unconscious and we drag you out."

It's at that point that Buddy thinks she's had her fill of spectating, and starts to move to stand, but Peter speaks in soft Solar towards her, "Don't trouble yourself, captain. I can handle this myself."

Buddy raises an eyebrow at him, but settles back down. She watches as he takes a fortifying breath and carefully pushes himself away from the wall, half-limping and half-hopping his way across the floor with quiet, shaky gasps escaping him every time he shifts his weight.

That continues until he makes to go past the guard, who hasn't yet moved. With vicious speed, their foot kicks out and connects with Peter's ankle before any of them can react.

He goes down hard, with a shout of agony that's all the louder in such a small room, even if he does stifle it quickly after. One hand contains any further noise to within his mouth while the other clenches white-knuckled against the floor, his whole body shaking with what Buddy assumes is a combination of pain, fever, and the effort of holding back another scream.

"Mistah Ransom--!" Rita wavers, darting to help him, but the guard levels their weapon at her and she shrinks back with a squeak.

"You stay where you are," they snap, in harsh-toned Solar, before turning back to Peter and toeing him with the end of their boot. " _Get up._ "

"My leg," Peter bites, sharp teeth bared in both pain and anger, "is _broken_."

"You _murdered_ my cousin that day - do you even _remember_ her?" the guard hisses, dealing a sharp kick to Peter's stomach that drives another shout from his lips and pushes him to curl around his side as another one follows close on its heels. "I don't give a damn whether you've broken _every. Bone. In. Your body_."

Buddy is on her feet before she's really thought about it, but thanks to years of practise her words are already in line and waiting by the time she gets there. She draws herself up to her full height, which is respectable, and calls up every ounce of authority she has, which is considerable.

"I think that's quite enough," she announces. "If you want to keep him in any condition for a trial, I suggest you get him some painkillers and antibiotics at least, or else that leg will kill him before you can. And then where would you be, going home without your trophy?"

The guard glares at her, their face flushed with righteous anger. But Buddy is right, as she usually is, and thankfully it seems that they're more committed to a complete revenge than an immediate one.

"Stay there," they snap, turning on their heel towards the exit as the way opens to meet them. "I'll be back soon. Don't try anything."

The door slides shut with a whispered hiss.

"...Mistah Thief?" Rita asks, as quietly as Buddy has ever heard from her. "You okay?"

Slowly, and with a stifled grunt of pain that ends in a sharp gasp, Peter rolls himself onto his back. Then, he laughs - hoarse and dry and yet also borderline hysterical. "To be entirely honest, my dear, I've been better."

"Come on," Buddy says quietly, stepping lightly towards him and gesturing for Rita to follow. "Let's get you up."

Even with Rita's stature and Buddy's radiation-blasted constitution, with one of them taking either shoulder they can get him sitting up with relative ease and only a few stray hisses of pain - there's probably a few bruised ribs in the mix now too, after that performance. The poor man has gone from a light tremor to near-violent shaking, glassy-eyed and panting from pain and fever. After they've propped him against the wall again, though, and Buddy makes to move away, he stops her with a gentle tug on her sleeve. Even in this state, the sharp intelligence she'd noted when she hired him is still bright in his eyes.

"I didn't know you spoke Brahman," he murmurs, low enough for only her to hear. Buddy almost has to smile at his catching her out - she had given herself away there, hadn't she?

"Enough to broker a deal or two," she says lightly. He lets go of her sleeve, and seems to curl in on himself as he retracts his hand to release her back to her route, but she doesn't continue on it just yet. "...I always did wonder what happened to the boy responsible for emancipating an entire planet," she murmurs, sitting down next to him.

"You ain't the only one, Captain A, they did a docustream special on it just a few years ago now!" Rita interjects from a couple of feet down the wall. " _'Peter Nureyev: man or myth'!_ The actor they had playin' ya wasn't nearly so handsome though, Mistah Thief, I promise."

Peter closes his eyes again as she speaks, his face looking somehow even more drawn than before. "You... _also_ speak Brahman."

"Oh, sure - they've got just the best soap series out there, and it always pays to watch the originals, y'know, rather than the Solar versions, and after twenty seasons of _'Floatin' Hearts Under The Floatin' City'_ it'd be weird if I wasn't at least a _little_ fluent." Her fingers dance over one of her bracelets - a beaded thing that clicks softly as she flicks them down the string one by one. "Also I looked you up right after that first time I thought the boss was dead but he was only with you instead - you got a _real_ light digital footprint, Mistah Thief, took me a whole day and a half to get to the good stuff."

Peter had lifted his hand to quietly massage his forehead while Rita went on, but the second time she dances away from using his name he stops to wave her off and shake his head. "Nureyev, Rita. You can call me Nureyev," he sighs, dropping his hand back to his lap. "That cat's thoroughly out of the bag now, no sense in trying to shove it back in."

"That _is_ usually how you get yourself stung, in my experience," Buddy says, and quirks an eyebrow at him when he glances warily over at her. "Perhaps it's best to let this particular pet spend some time out in the open again."

Peter's eyes linger on her for a long moment before he turns away. "It's been in there for a very long time, captain," he murmurs. "I'm not sure it knows how to any more." He swallows, eyeing the door. "Or that it will have very long to do so."

Buddy reaches out and lays her hand over his. His face twitches, chin dipping down towards his knees.

"Peter," she says quietly. "Look at me, darling."

He does, carefully. And despite the valiant attempt he's making to keep his expression under control, the glimpses she's catching of what's underneath are of someone very, very scared.

"We've found ourselves in an unfavourable position," she says, "And there's no changing that, for the moment. No running away this time. We simply have to keep surviving, and wait for an opportunity to arise. We have no way to stop them from taking you away in this moment, but Buddy Aurinko does not say things she doesn't mean. You have a place in this family, darling, injury or no injury, and we do _not_ leave behind family. Under any circumstances. Do you understand?"

Peter's expression trembles. For a split-second, it looks like he might burst into tears. Instead, he looks away again.

"Completely, captain," he says thickly. And then, even softer, "Thank you."

Buddy offers him a smile, and releases his hand to gently pat his arm. "Just hang in there for now, dear. We'll be out to rescue you faster than you can say 'stay of execution'."

"...In that case, I'll look forward to seeing it," Peter says, lifting his eyes again and tentatively returning the smile. "I've never been on the receiving end of a rescue mission before."

Buddy's smile turns into a grin. "Well then, we'll have to be sure to make it suitably dramatic for you, won't we?" 

" _Ooh_ , its gonna be _just_ like _'Escape from Epsilon 14: Part Five'_!" Rita squeals. Buddy had almost forgotten she was there, she'd been so uncharacteristically quiet. "With the two-hour car chase, and the robot lady who falls in love with the dreamy cyborg prince, and the _surprise twist at the end where--_!"

The door whisks open again, and Rita cuts herself off with a squeak. The same guard as before enters with a pair of sleek black crutches in hand, and throws them to the ground just shy of Peter's feet. "There. Now you can walk. And don't get any ideas about fighting or running, or else I -" they brandish the baton out in front of them and push the button on its handle to send out a demonstrative spark - "get to use this."

Buddy reaches out for the crutches, and gives the guard a hard look when they shift their grip on their weapon like they might try to stop her. She picks them up slowly and deliberately, and sets them to the side while she and Rita help Peter to his feet - or foot, as it were - before retrieving them and placing them in his hands. 

He thanks them both, quietly, and carefully starts to swing himself forwards. This time, the guard steps by to let him pass, and follows him as he makes his way over to the door, where he stops and looks back over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry for bringing all of you into this," he says, "And please, tell Juno--"

The guard shoves him hard between the shoulderblades, sending him stumbing out of the room with a strained grunt of pain, but he just about manages to keep his feet under him. "Tell Juno we'll talk again soon," he calls back in a rush, before the door snaps shut behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a kudos and/or comment for me to enjoy too :)
> 
> And again: sorry, nureyev


End file.
